Chapter 6

The rough pavement was dotted with fires over which simmered pots filled with what only a very jealous God indeed would have called food. About them were huddled the traders from the bazaars, the camel-drivers from the desert, the water-carriers from Bab el Derb. Each man held a cigarette in his left hand and a match in his right. He would smoke before he ate.

In the long arcades the camels, in from the Soudan, knelt, fasting. An Arab led a tame lion into the square and the beast held back on his chain as he passed the flesh-pots, for he, too, was fasting. Crowds of little children stood about the circle of the fires, fasting. A God was being placated by the sufferings of His creatures.

There is little twilight in the latitude of Biskra. There is the hard, white light of the daytime, five minutes of lavender and running shadows, and then the purple blackness of the night.

The mueddin took his place on the minaret of the mosque. His shadow ran to the centre of the square and stopped. He cried his admonition, each white-robed figure bowed to the earth in supplication, a cannon-shot at the citadel split the hot air, and in an instant the square was dotted with sparks. Each worshipper had struck his match. The fast was over until sunrise.

The silence became a Babel. All fell to eating and to talking. A marabout, graceful as a Greek statue, came out of the mosque and made his way among the fires. As he passed, the squatting Mussulmans caught at his robe and kissed it. Mirza, the mother of the Almee girls, her golden necklaces glinting in the firelight, came walking by. As she passed the marabout he drew back and held his white burnoose across his face. She bent her knee and then went on, but as she passed she laughed and whispered, "Which trade pays best, yours or mine?" and she shook her necklaces.

"Daughter," said the marabout, "there is but one God."

"Yes," she replied, "but He has many prophets, and, of them all, you are the most beautiful," and she went on.

An officer of _spahis_ rode in and, stopping his horse before the arched door of the commandant, stood motionless. The square was filled with color, with life, with foreignness, with the dancing flames, the leaping shadows, the fumes of the cook-pots, the odor of Arabian tobacco, the clamor of all the dialects of North Africa.

A bugle sounded. Out of a side street trotted a cavalcade. The iron shoes of the horses rang on the pavement, and the steel chains of the curbs tinkled. The commandant dismounted and gave his bridle to his orderly.

The commandant walked through the square. He wore a fatigue cap, a sky-blue blouse, with white loopings, white breeches, tight at the knee, and patent-leather boots, with box spurs. He walked through the square slowly, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He was not only the commandant but he was the commissioner of police. With seventy men he ruled ten thousand, and he knew his weakness. The knowledge of his weakness was his strength.

As he walked through the square he met Mirza. He passed her without a sign of recognition and she, on her part, was looking at the minaret of the mosque.

In their official capacities they were strangers. On certain occasions, when the commandant was in _mufti_ they had, at least, passed the time of day. The commandant walked through the long rows of fires, speaking to a merchant here, nodding to a date-grower there, casting quick glances and saying nothing to the spies who, mingling with the people, sat about the kouss-kouss pots, and reported to the commandant, each morning, the date set for his throat-cutting. This was many years ago, before there was a railroad to Biskra.

The commandant, having made the round of the fires, crossed over to his house under the arcades. He dismissed the sergeant and the guard, and they rode away to the barracks, the hoof-beats dying in the distance. The _spahi_ remained, silent, motionless. The commandant was about to enter his door, when a man sprang from behind one of the pillars of the arcade and held out to him a paper. The commandant put his hands behind his back. The _spahi_ edged his horse up closely.

"Who are you?" asked the commandant, in French.

The man shook his head, but still held out the paper.

"Who are you?" asked the commandant again, but now in Arabic.

"I am Ali, the slave of Abdullah," answered the man, "and he sends you this letter."

The commandant remained motionless. "Will your horse stand, corporal?" he asked of the _spahi_.

"Perfectly, my colonel."

"Leave him, then," said the commandant, "and bring one of your pistols."

The _spahi_ gathered his long blue cloak off the quarters of his horse, took a revolver from its holster, swung his right leg over his horse's head, so that he might not for an instant turn his back, threw the reins over his horse's neck, brought the heels of his red boots together, saluted, and stood silent.

The horse began to play with the pendant reins and to shift his loosened bit.

"Go in," said the commandant, and the _spahi_ opened the door. "You next," and Ali followed. The commandant brought up the rear.

They entered at once not a hall but a room. So all Eastern houses are ordered. A lamp was burning, the walls were hung with maps of France and of North Africa, a few shelves held a few books and many tin cases labelled "Forage," "Hospital," "Police." Behind a desk sat a little man, dressed in black, who was dealing cards to himself in a game of solitaire. He rose and bowed when the commandant entered, and then he went on with his game.

"Stand there," said the commandant, pointing to a corner, "and put your hands over your head."

Ali obeyed.

"Search him," said the commandant.

The _spahi_ began at Ali's hair and ended with his sandals.

"He has nothing," he reported.

"Now give me the letter," said the commandant.

Ali twisted himself, fumbled at his waist, and drew out a knife. He placed it on the desk, smiling.

"Do not blame the corporal for overlooking this," he said; "I am so thin from the journey that he took it for one of my ribs."

"I will trust you," said the commandant, and he took the letter.

The little man in black kept dealing solitaire.

The commandant read the letter to himself and laughed, and then he read it aloud:

"_To Monsieur the COUNT D'APREMONT, Commandant at Biskra.

"MONSIEUR: Since last I saw you strange things have happened. I have turned Christian, and I have married. I wonder at which of these statements you will laugh most.

"May I bring my wife to your house? She will be the only Christian woman in Biskra. Say 'yes' or 'no' to the bearer. I am halted a mile outside of the town, awaiting your answer.

"Mirza, the mother of the Almees, has a certain claim upon my wife; how valid I do not know. I need counsel, but first of all I need shelter. May I come?_

"ABDULLAH."

"Of course he may come," said the commandant; "what is to prevent?"

"The law, perhaps," said the little man in black, shuffling the cards.

The commandant turned quickly. "Why the law, Monsieur the Chancellor?" he asked.

"Because," answered the little man, still shuffling the cards, "he says that Mirza has a certain claim upon his wife, how valid he does not know; and he needs counsel and he needs shelter. When a man writes like this, he also needs a lawyer;" and he commenced a new deal.

The commandant stood a moment, thinking. Then he raised his head with a jerk, and said to Ali: "Tell your master that I say 'yes.'"

Ali made salaam and glided from the room.

"He has left his knife," said the lawyer.

The commandant turned to the _spahi_. "Corporal," he said, "go to the citadel and bring back twelve men. Place six of them at the entrance of the square, and six of them before my house. When Abdullah's caravan has entered the square, have the further six close in behind. You may take your time. It will be an hour before you are needed."

The _spahi_ saluted, and went out.

The commandant turned to the little man in black.

"Why in the world," he asked, "did you object to my harboring Abdullah? He is my friend and yours. He is the best man that crosses the desert. He has eaten our salt many times. If all here were like him, you and I might go home to France, with our medals and our pensions."

"True," said the lawyer, gathering his cards, "and very likely there is no risk in harboring him and his wife." He shuffled the cards mechanically, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall.

"My friend," he said, at length, "whom do you consider the most powerful person in Biskra, the person to be first reckoned with?"

The commandant laughed. "As I am in command," he said, "I should be court-martialled if I denied my own superiority."

"And yet," said the lawyer, "you are only a poor second."

The commandant, who was sitting astride of his chair, his hands upon its back, demi-vaulted as if he were in the saddle of a polo pony.

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

The lawyer kept shuffling the cards, but he paid no attention to them.

"Go to the window," he said, "and tell me what you see."

The commandant rose, and went to the window, his spurs jingling. He drew the curtain and looked out.

"What do you see?" asked the counsellor.

"I see the square," answered the commandant, "with five hundred kettle-lights, and three thousand Mussulmans gorging themselves, making up lost time."

"Look over at the left corner," said the lawyer.

"I see the mosque," said the commandant, "with its lamps burning."

"There you have it," cried the lawyer. "This religion that you and I are sent to conquer keeps its lamps burning constantly, while the religion that comes to conquer lights its candles only for the mass. Mankind loves light and warmth. What do you see now?"

"I see Mirza," replied the commandant; "she is walking up the centre line of the fires. Now she stops. She meets a man, draws him hurriedly aside, and is speaking close to his ear."

"Has he a green turban?" asked the lawyer. "Has he been to Mecca?"

"Yes," answered the commandant.

"There you see the most powerful person in Biskra," said the counsellor.

"Who?" asked the commandant. "The man in the green turban?"

"No," said the lawyer, "the woman he is speaking to."

"Mirza?" exclaimed the commandant.

"Yes," said the lawyer. "The centre of affairs, since the world was sent spinning, has always been a woman. Who placed the primal curse of labor on the race? Was it the man, Adam, or the woman, Eve?"

"As I remember," said the commandant, "the serpent was the prime mover in that affair."

"Yes," said the lawyer; "but being 'more subtile than any beast in the field,' he knew that if he caught the woman the man would follow of his own accord. Julius Caesar and Antony were dwarfed by Cleopatra. Helen of Troy set the world ablaze. Joan of Arc saved France. Catharine I saved Peter the Great. Catharine II made Russia. Marie Antoinette ruled Louis XVI and lost a crown and her head. Fat Anne of England and Sarah Jennings united England and Scotland. Eugénie and the milliners lost Alsace and Lorraine. Victoria made her country the mistress of the world. I have named many women who have played great parts in this drama which we call life. How many of them were good women? By 'good' I do not mean virtuous, but simply 'good.'"

"Out of your list," said the commandant, "I should name Joan of Arc and Victoria."

"A woman," repeated the lawyer, "is the centre of every affair. When you go back to France, what are you looking forward to?"

"My wife's kiss," said the commandant. "And you, since you are a bachelor?"

"The scolding of my housekeeper," said the lawyer, and he shrugged his shoulders.

The commandant laughed. "But what of Mirza?" he asked. "Why is she so powerful?"

"For the same reason that your wife and my housekeeper are powerful," said the lawyer; "she is a woman."

"A woman here," said the commandant, "is a slave."

"A _good_ woman, I grant you," said the lawyer, "but a _bad_ woman, if she chance to be beautiful, is an empress. Do you know how many men it takes to officer a mosque of the first class, such a one as we have here? Twelve," and he dropped the cards and began to count his fingers. "Two _mueddins_ the chaps that call to prayer; two _tolbas_ who read the litanies; two _hezzabin_, who read the Koran; a _mufti_ who interprets the law; a _khetib_ who recites the prayer for the chief of the government each Friday, and who is very unpopular; an _iman_ who reads the five daily prayers; a _chaouch_ who is a secretary to the last of the list, the _oukil_ who collects the funds and pays them out. The _oukil_ is the man who governs the mosque. He is the man in the green turban whom you saw talking with Mirza. They are partners. He attends to the world, she to the flesh, and both to the devil. It is a strong partnership. It is what, in America, they call a 'trust.' The _oukil_ sends his clients to Mirza, and she sends hers to the _oukil_. Look out of the window again. There are three thousand religionists who have passed through the hands of the _oukil_ and Mirza, and she, making the most money, has the last word. Do you ask, now, why she is the most powerful person in Biskra?"

"It seems," said the commandant, "that it is because she is a woman, and is bad."

"And beautiful," added the lawyer.

"Do you think her beautiful?" asked the commandant.

The lawyer thought a moment. "Did you ever see a hunting-leopard?" he asked.

"No," said the commandant.

"I used to see them," said the lawyer, "when I was in Sumatra, looking after the affairs of some Frenchmen who were buying pearls from the oyster-beds of Arippo. They were horribly beautiful. Mirza reminds me of them, especially when she seizes her prey. Most beasts of prey are satisfied when they have killed all that they can devour; but the hunting-leopard kills because she loves to kill. So does Mirza. She destroys because she loves to destroy. A hunting-leopard and Mirza are the only two absolutely cruel creatures I have ever seen. Of course," he added, "I eliminate the English, who deem the day misspent unless they have killed something, and who give infinite pains and tenderness to the raising of pheasants, that they may slaughter a record number of them at a _battue_. Aside from a hunting-leopard and a hunting- Englishman, I know of no being so cruel as Mirza; no being that takes such delight in mere extermination. They used to call our nobility, in the time of Louis XIV and Louis XV, cruel, but they did not kill, they merely taxed. In the height of the ancient _régime_, it was not good form to kill a peasant, because then the country had one less taxpayer. The height of the art was to take all the peasant had and then to induce him to set to work again. When he had earned another surplus, his lord came and took it. France had an accomplished nobility. England had a brutal one. The latter used to take all the eggs out of the nest and then kill the hen. The French noble took all the eggs but one or two, and spared the hen. He could rob a nest a dozen times and his English contemporary could rob it but once."

"My friend," said the commandant, laughing, "you reassure me. When you begin comparing England with France, I know that you have nothing of importance at hand and that your mind is kicking up its heels in vacation. You have a charming mind, my friend, but it has been prostituted to the law. If you had been bred a soldier--"

He stopped, because the murmur of the square suddenly stopped. The cessation of a familiar clamor is more startling than a sudden cry. The two men ran to the window. The fires under the pots were still burning and the square was light as day. At the opposite side, where the caravan road debouched, three thousand white-robed Mussulmans stood, silent. Above them the commandant and the lawyer could see the heads of the six _spahis_, they and their horses silent. Beyond, were the heads of many camels. The commandant threw up the sash. Across the silent square came a woman's voice, speaking Arabic in the dialect of Ouled Nail.

"That is Mirza," said the lawyer.

Then there came a man's voice, evidently in reply.

"That is Abdullah," said the lawyer.

"How can you distinguish at this distance?" asked the commandant.

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "While you are drilling your soldiers," he said, "I am drilling myself. If a man yonder sneezes, I can name his tribe. A sneeze, being involuntary, cannot be artificial, and therefore it is the true index of race and character. Take the Oriental Express any night from Paris to Vienna. If you will sit up late enough and walk up and down the aisle, you may tell from the sneezes and the coughs the nationality of the occupant of each berth. A German sneezes with all his might, and if there is a compatriot within hearing he says, '_Gesundheit_.' An Italian sneezes as if it were a crime, with his hand over his face."

"Hush," said the commandant.

Out from the white-robed crowd came two forms, Mirza and the _oukil_. Mirza held a paper in her hand. They went to the nearest fire and Mirza gave the paper to the man with the green turban. He read it, thought a moment, read it again, and then the two went back to the silent crowd by the mosque. There was conversation, there were vehement exclamations which, if they had been in English, would have been oaths--there was a sudden movement of the horses and the camels; the outskirts of the crowd surged and broke, and then, above their heads, flashed the sabres of the _spahis_.

The commandant went to the door. "Corporal," he said, "take your men to the mosque, join your comrades, and bring to me Abdullah, his wife, Mirza, and the _oukil_."

The corporal saluted, gave an order, and the little troop trotted across the square. The commandant closed the shutters of the window.

"I do not care to see the row," he said, and he lit a cigarette. But if he did not see the row, he heard it, for presently came the yelp and snarl of an Oriental mob.

"It is growing warm," said the commandant. "Hospitality cannot be lightly practised here."

"Nor anywhere," said the lawyer, who had resumed his cards; "because it is a virtue, and the virtues are out of vogue. The only really successful life, as the world looks upon success now, is an absolutely selfish life. It is the day of specialists, of men with one idea, one object, and the successful man is the one who permits nothing to come between him and his object. Wife, children, honor, friendship, ease, all must give place to the grand pursuit; be it the gathering of wealth, the discovery of a disease germ, the culture of orchids, or the breeding of a honey-bee that works night and day. Human life is too short to permit a man to do more than one thing well, and money is becoming so common that its possessors require the best of everything."

"Old friend," said the commandant, "you are a many-sided man, and yet you are one of the best lawyers in France."

"You have said it," exclaimed the lawyer; "_one_ of the best, not _the_ best. The one thing I have earnestly striven for I have not attained."

"What is that?" asked the commandant. "Do you wish to be Minister of Justice?"

"No," said the lawyer; "but I should like to be known as the best player of Napoleon solitaire."

A sabre-hilt rapped on the door.

"Enter," cried the commandant.

The door opened, and there entered first the sharp cries of the mob, and then the corporal, Abdullah, a woman clothed all in white, the _oukil_, and, last of all, Mirza. The moment she was within the room she dominated it. The other occupants were blotted out by comparison. She entered, debonair, smiling, and, as she crossed the threshold, she flung up her hand in a military salute.

"Hail, my masters," she cried in Arabic. "Would you believe it? but just now I was nearly robbed, before your windows, of merchandise that cost me thirty ounces."

"Be good enough to speak French," said the commandant; "it is the etiquette of the office."

"And to you?" exclaimed Mirza, in the speech of Paris, "to you, who speak such charming Arabic. It was only last week, the evening you did me the honor of supping with me, that Miriam--perhaps you will pay her the compliment of remembering her--the little girl who played and danced for you, and who, when you were going, hooked on your sword for you, and gave you a light from her cigarette?--well, Miriam said, when you were gone, 'It is a pity the gracious commandant speaks any language save Arabic, he speaks that so convincingly.' What could you have whispered to her, Monsieur le Commandant, as you left my poor house?"

The commandant moved nervously in his chair and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the lawyer, who had resumed his cards. Reassured by the apparent abstraction of his friend, the commandant gathered himself and essayed a pleasantry.

"I told her," he said, "that if she lived to be twice her age, she might be half as beautiful as you."

Mirza made an exaggerated courtesy and threw a mocking kiss from her finger-tips. "I thought," she said, "that a woman's age was something that no well-bred Frenchman would speak of." Then she drew herself up and her face, from mocking, became hard and cruel.

"I know," she said, slowly, "that I am old. I am eight-and-twenty. I was a wife at twelve, and a mother at thirteen. Such matters are ordered differently here, Monsieur. A girl is a woman before she has had any childhood. I married Ilderhim. Of course, I had never seen him until we stood before the cadi. I had the misfortune to bear him a daughter, and he cursed me. When I was fourteen, a Russian Grand Duke came to Biskra and my husband sold me to him. I refused to submit myself. Then Ilderhim beat me and turned me out of his house. You understand, Monsieur le Commandant, that under our blessed religion a man may have as many wives as he chooses and may divorce them when he chooses. Well, there I was, without a husband, without a home, without my child, and I passed the night in the arcades, among the camels. The next morning I went to the hotel and asked for the Grand Duke. 'Monsieur,' I said to him, 'I am Mirza. I would not _sell_ myself to you, but if you will take me as a gift, behold, here am I.' He took me to Paris, to Vienna, to St. Petersburg. For a year he did not tire of me. That was a long time for a savage to amuse a Grand Duke, was it not? Then one day he gave me money, bade me keep the jewels he had given me, and sent me back to Biskra. Since then I have been, first a dancing-girl, and then, the mother of them all. I have never given the authorities any trouble. I have observed the laws of France. What will the laws of France do for me?" and she handed to the commandant the invoice which Abdullah had brought with his freight.

The commandant read the paper and his face grew troubled.

"Chancellor," he said, "is this binding?"

The lawyer read the paper twice. "Yes," he said, "it is a mere hiring; it is not a sale. I don't see how we can interfere."

"Mirza," said the commandant, "it seems that you have a good contract, under Moslem law."

"Excellent," cried the _oukil_, rubbing his hands.

"Silence," thundered the commandant. "Speak French, and that only when you are spoken to. Abdullah, have you anything which you wish to say to me?"

Abdullah bent and whispered in the ear of the girl who sat trembling; then he stepped forward.

"Monsieur le Commandant," he said, "will you have the kindness to read this?" and he held out a paper. It was yellow with age and of quarto size and twice folded. The commandant took it, unfolded it, and read aloud, "_The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen_."

"Why, this is the last page of a Bible," he said.

"I do not know," said Abdullah. "He tore it from a book upon his table. It was the only paper that he had. Upon the other side is writing."

The commandant reversed the paper and again read: